Sweden and Israel during the second intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) after 2002:

“Sharon also destroyed the peace process a couple of months ago, through his provocation on the Temple Mount”Hillevi Larsson MP, Social Democratic partyParliament debate, 2002/0162, statement no 119 (February 7, 2000)

“Sharon ignited the embers.“The Al Aqsa uprising began on the September 29, 2000 with the Israeli right-wing politician Ariel Sharon visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It was perceived as an insult to the Muslims and their sanctuaries.”Sydsvenska Dagbladet morning paper (April 5, 2002)

“The Temple walk started the uprising.Some months earlier he had taken a walk on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. His venture awoke dismay amongst the Palestinians and was regarded as a gross provocation. The visit at the Temple Mount released a Palestinian uprising,the second intifada.” Swedish (national) Television (January 23, 2003)

“The second intifada started after Ariel Sharon, followed by thousands of armed Israeli troops, visited the place of al-Aqsa and The Dome of The Rock at the Temple Mount in eastern Jerusalem.”Gellert Tamas at the Olof Palme Center (May 21, 2003)

“Sharon is also the reason the second intifada, the al-Aqsa intifada, started. He caused the increased rivalry between the Islamic groups and Arafat’s secular followers by visiting the Temple Mount.”Lev Grinberg, Swedish Palestine Groups (SPG) (September 17, 2003)

“The ongoing Palestinian rebellion was started by the Israeli Prime minister walking up to the Temple Mount al-Haram al-Sharif on September 27, 2000.”TT/Dagens Nyheter (February 27, 2004)

“The intifada was triggered by the current Prime Minster Ariel Sharon’s provocative visit at the Muslim sanctuaries at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on September 28, 2000”TT/Dagens Nyheter (April 23, 2004)

“…since the offensive began in 2000, then provoked by the march lead by Ariel Sharon, up to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem”Aftonbladet/TT-AFP (October 6, 2004)

“The broad masses of a nation will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.”- Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf

So, was the collective Swedish media delivering the truth, in the previous, constantly ongoing, recurring statements and reports from the self-proclaimed experts, politicians and news agencies in the Swedish society during these years? Was it true that a promenade could have ignited a fire of terror to last at least for 4 years? For a primary answer there was the Mitchell Commission’s investigational report that concluded:

”The Sharon visit did not cause the ‘al-Aqsa intifada’.”

But if one cares to listen to the Arabs themselves,[1] when the Palestinian Authority’s minister of communications held a speech at a camp in Lebanon, the picture looks somewhat different from what the media and the critics constantly try to illustrate:

”Whoever thinks that this intifada started as a result of the despicable visit of Sharon to El Aqsa mosque is in error”…”This intifada was already planned, ever since the President’s [Arafat’s] return from the talks at Camp David,”- Imad al-Faluji, Minister of Communications, Palestinian Authority, Lebanon(December 5, 2000)[2]

***

“The common people have not, and indeed cannot have, any historic comprehension. They do not know that the sins of the Middle Ages are now being visited upon the nations of Europe.”- Theodor Herzl, Der Judenstaat (1896)

***

The modern tragedy of the Jewish people

The humanity by large does know all too little about the Jews and their pathetic struggle, their modern tragic problems. All too many don’t know anything at all. There are also people that turn away and with a shrug say: It doesn’t concern me.

Is this right?

No. It is undignified for us all to know too little, undignified to know nothing at all or to turn away. On the contrary, the Jews’ overwhelming drama concerns us all. Yes, it strictly concerns the non-Jews even more than the Jews themselves. This is not a paradox, though it is not the Jews that carry the injustice that has applied to the Jewish people during the centuries. It is the whole of the non-Jewish outside world that have made this people’s destiny into an almost endless martyrium for 2000 years.

Is this to continue? Can honest citizens in states that call themselves justice states and regard themselves as representatives for modern culture in the larger or lesser completion, escape feeling undetermined or indifferent towards the Jewish people’s future destiny as a conscience grudge?- Marika Stiernstedt, Stockholm April 1948

For my father

I, the author, prefer to be anonymous at this moment in time, mainly due to the current political climate in the Nordic region. And who I am exactly should be, and is, of less interest. Focus instead on the presented, and referred to, facts.

For Zion's sake I will not be silent, for Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet, Until her vindication shines forth like the dawn and her victory like a burning torch.Isaiah, Chapter 62:1

Influences

Just to mention some of the few that has been my inspiration, from time memorialized up until today, are the friends of Israel and Jews that have raised their voices in times of hardship. On the international arena there are many more names. In Sweden there are also several more than those briefly mentioned here, but the former liberal Swedish deputy prime minister, now author and journalist, Per Ahlmark’s book “Vänstern och Tyranniet”, (“The Tyranny and the Left”, available in English translation). This book is downloadable[3] free of charge (only in Swedish), filled to the brim and loaded with logic, and perhaps yet more interesting facts of the Swedish lefties, with testimonies from inside the halls of Swedish politics during a quarter of a century of history wreaking havoc within Swedish domestic and foreign politics. Ahlmark’s political mentor was Herbert Tingsten, former liberal chief editor at the major daily morning paper Dagens Nyheter (DN), who also wrote several books on Israel. Tingsten’s influences at that time, during and after the Second World War, was Rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis and the intellectual teacher and historian Hugo Valentin, among other Swedish authors, who in turn seemed impressed and inspired by the intellectual legacy of Theodor Herzl, also known as one of the main founders of modern Zionism, the patriotic Jewish dream of democracy and independence.